What are you favorite books, right now?

And where will you write and read this summer?

Dear Writers,

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Lent, Ramadan and Purim, if you observe. This holiday week, let’s talk joy. What are you reading and writing these days and where are you going this summer?

This past weekend, my husband, mother, brother, and older son went to see my sister-in-law sing and dance in her synagogue’s Purimspiel. (This was not your average Purimspiel. One of violinist Itzhak Perlman’s daughters, Leora, a Juilliard-trained soprano, is married to the cantor. Perlman sang two songs, one dressed as Elvis.) While waiting for the show to begin, my brother introduced us to the guy sitting two seats away from us and said, “This is my friend. He’s read more books than anybody I know.” When the friend turned to me and asked, “What’s your favorite book?” I panicked. I could only think of the books I’m reading now, Margaret Renkle’s Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss and Claire Lombardo’s novel Same As It Ever Was. I knew I had other favorite books. What were they?

It was early Saturday night and I was coming down from a sugar high, brought on by a cup of rich, creamy hot chocolate that arrived with a large, toasted marshmallow bobbing on top (thank you, Frenchette bakery). While my seat-mate shared that he had loved Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy (me too), I confessed that the only books I could come up with were the ones I had read and listened to the night before.

We live in stressful times and, of course, we should be inhaling the news but we also need comfort and joy. These books will bring you both. Renkl, an Opinion writer for The New York Times, published Late Migrations in 2019. It is a braided memoir/collection of essays that combines her love of nature (specifically birds and other animals in her backyard), with stories about her mother’s depression, her father’s steadfast support, her parents and grandparents’ lives in Alabama, and her decision to become a poet and writer after dropping out of a literature PhD program at Penn. Her book is a balm.

Lombardo’s novel is about a middle-aged woman named Julia who once had an affair with her older friend Helen’s hot, young son. The novel toggles back in forth in time, to the past when Julia was a young, restless mother, and back to the present, when she is a reasonably content wife and mother of semi-adult children. (Note: I’m listening to the book on Audible and was stopped for speeding while listening to a particularly erotic scene.) I’ve highlighted the hell out of both books on my Kindle. They’ll make you sigh with pleasure and more important, make you want to write. And as writers, isn’t that what we look for books to do, give us ideas on how to hone our craft?

Speaking of honing our craft, join journalist and wildlife photographer Amy Eskind and me for the four-day writing retreat we’re running June 2-5 in Park City, Utah!

WHY SHOULD YOU GO?

• Community, Connection, and Creativity: As writers, we hold each other accountable, help each other make deadlines, and make sure we finish what we’ve started.

• Publication: I’ve helped writers get published in Brevity; Eat, Darling, Eat; the Forward; The Girlfriend; Herstry; Huffington Post; Kveller, Literary Mama; The New York Times; Pennsylvania Gazette; Random House; She Writes Press: Tablet; Wylie; the Yale Review, and a wide range of literary magazines.

• We’re fun and know how to get s*** done: Amy and I grew up together in New Jersey. We’ve known each other for 50-plus years and we know that writers working together can do anything!

Writing ✍️

• We’ll meet for three, 3-hour writing workshops.

• Writers can submit up to 40 pages (10,000 words) before the retreat begins and will receive line edits, written feedback, and a discussion of their work during the retreat.

• Writers can sign up for one half-hour, one-on-one conference with Laura.

Activities 📷

• A 2-hour cell phone photography workshop where Amy will teach you how to take better cell phone pictures, using her signature “precious diamond photos” method.

• We’ll spend afternoons writing, reading, hiking, touring the Olympic Park in Park City, and visiting the Family Search Library in Salt Lake.

• “Open mics” where writers will have a chance to share their new work.

Lodging 🏕️

• Reserve your room directly at any of these hotels in the Canyons in Park City: The Pendry, Westgate Park City Resort & Spa, or Sundial Lodge.

Transportation 🚖

• Book your flight in and out of Salt Lake City.

  (Roughly 40 miles from the Canyons hotels by ride-share or taxi.)

Price 💵

• Inclusions: Transportation will be provided from the Pendry Hotel to and from the workshops; 4 lunches, 3 dinners, and 1 welcome cocktail.

• Exclusions: Alcohol, Olympic Park Tour entrance fee, hotel rooms, breakfast, and other transportation.

• Cost: $2,000.

  (Early bird special: Bring a friend, sign up by April 1st, and receive a 20% discount. Code: 2MATES).

Lisa Greene, Postcard Time Machine (The Pennsylvania Gazette)

Judy Silvan, Bottom Up Gratitude (Psychotherapy Networker)

Christine Sun Kim, All Day All Night (The Whitney, through July 6): Interesting, sassy, dogmatic and humorous exhibit by young, deaf, Korean artist who draws, paints, sculpts and writes about her struggles to be heard and create in a hostile and oblivious world. Kim has two daughters and is married to hearing German artist, Thomas Marder; the videos they did together are delightful.

Conclave: Belatedly rented this Academy-nominated film for $5.99 from Apple. Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini star. The movie asks the question, Who should be the next pope, while embracing two key storytelling principles: Provide a twist and love your flawed characters. Best lines, uttered by Fiennes’ character Cardinal Thomas Lawrence: “There is one sin which I have come to fear above all others: Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”

Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center Theater, through April 26): Great, disturbing, and sometimes funny play about art, incest, adultery, syphilis, love, and mothers and sons. The cast includes Lily Rabe as Helena Alving, Levon Hawke as Oswald, Ella Beatty as Regina and Billy Crudup, who is excellent and ingratiating as Pastor Manders.

I’m Still Here (in Portuguese): Sad, beautiful film about what happened after the military dictatorship took over in Brazil and removed Congressman Rubens Paiva, a loving father and husband, from his family. Fernanda Torres is brilliant as Paiva’s wife, Eunice. When the movie flashes forward and shows Eunice firmly lodged in dementia, it is the actress Fernanda Montenegro (Torres’ real life mother), who plays her. Based on the 2015 memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, there is grief here but lots of laughing and dancing too.